Yellowstone area

[RightStuff]

Looking for any info about Yellowstone Nat. Park and surrounding area for a trip in Oct. this year. I have the flight and car booked (in/out of Bozeman), hoping to check out Big Sky (no skiing unfortunately!) for a day, then thinking of staying in West Yellowstone (or somewhere else?) for the rest of the trip. What do you recommend seeing, avoiding, etc.?

 

[HangOutdoors]

Following..

Yellowstone is on my bucket list of places to go.

 

[Babin Farms]

Obviously you need to go see Old Faithfull but when we went we just drove around with no itinerary and had a great time just seeing different things and not being rushed because we had to get somewhere or be afraid to miss something. West Yellowstone is a nice little place to visit if you have time too.

 

[Johmas50]

If you are driving, download Gypsy Guide. It’s a little pricey but it’s awesome. Offline maps and audio guide, the cell service is spotty. Highly recommend.

 

[Street glide]

If you get time run over to Cody Wyoming and go to the willd Bill Cody museum as for yellow stone I agree just ride around and take your time ask some of the rangers where the bison are and try and see them

 

[fatboyroy]

When I was in Sturgis 2016, its been raining a lot so I cut my motorcycle trip short and went to yellowstone. Planning on staying 1 day and then continue my trip to Colorado. It was not enough, you need at least 3 days to go around Yellowstone (probably 5 to comfortably see everything without rushing), lots of hikes. If you need internet to check work and stuff, I had success in Gardiner Montana by North Entrance in small restaurants and cafe, all other place inside yellowstone with wifi is unusable since there is a lot of people. There is no phone signal there (when I was there at least). It is an amazing place, highly recommended!

Edit:
If you have time, about an hour from south Entrance (due to traffic its only about 20 miles), go to Colter Bay Marina for a spectacular view of Grand Teton.

 

[Scottintexas]

A wonderful place, a lot of the park amenities will probably be closed and you could have snow with a lot of back roads closed,

yellowstone falls is worth it,

it's easy to spend a lot of time driving, slow roads and lots of country in between,

blacktail Plateau drive was a nice off the path drive,

 

[dzeppos]

I did that trip last year. Incredible and just as good as everyone says it is. I might suggest a small RV for good campsites if you plan on staying within the park, otherwise, not sure about lodging and camping options. Its well organized and tons to see.

 

[RightStuff]

Dang, that area of the country is beautiful!
Just got back from this trip on Mon. night so here's the run down of what we did and pics (sorry in advance for the long post!). Let me know if you have any questions if you are planning your own trip...

We found a VRBO to stay at in West Yellowstone, that location worked perfect for us to get around the park. At this time of the year a large portion of the town was already closed for the season. The good with that was there was very little people around town and subsequently in the park, bad thing was we weren't able to do everything in town. But to be honest, didn't miss some random restaurants, gift shops or t-shirt stores. What was open was fine for us, plenty of options.

Day 1 - Fly into Bozeman, get car, swung by Big Sky to check it out and grab something to eat, then drive to West Yellowstone.

Day 2 - All day in Yellowstone NP, about 10-11 hrs in total. Started at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and made our way around to Norris Geyser Basin and then to Mammoth and eventually to Old Faithful stopping along the way at a few spots to see wildlife, etc. Light traffic made it easy to get around and see all of this in one day, I can't imagine during the busy summer time what the traffic must be like.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Artist Point:


Day 3 - Jackson and Grand Teton NP and a little Yellowstone on the back side. Hit the town of Jackson for shopping and lunch, cool town I could have spend more time here just wandering around. Checked out a few spots in Grand Teton NP, Schwabacher Landing, Jenny Lake, Jackson Lake (which was crazy dry due to drought conditions.) and then headed back up thru Yellowstone's S. entrance.

Schwabacher Landing:

Colter Bay Marina:


Day 3 - Yellowstone NP again to hit some spots we blew by the first day and some we saved for a day when the weather wasn't going to be as nice (got pretty cold this day, small bit of snow/rain). Firehole Canyon Road, Grand Prismatic, then West Thumb Geyser basin. Ended up being a shorter day overall.

Grand Prismatic from the overlook:


Day 4 - Another cold/rainy day so we hit the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center for a bit (sort of a mini zoo), then back into Yellowstone to see Old Faithful one last time and walk around the basin behind it.

Bison + Old Faithful:


Day 5 - Drive back to Bozeman (finally saw moose!), checked out downtown for a short bit then back to the airport. Ended up being about 1000 miles of driving for the trip and places we went.

Moose (1 of 3):

 

[FSH 210 Sport]

Dang, that area of the country is beautiful!
Just got back from this trip on Mon. night so here's the run down of what we did and pics (sorry in advance for the long post!). Let me know if you have any questions if you are planning your own trip...

We found a VRBO to stay at in West Yellowstone, that location worked perfect for us to get around the park. At this time of the year a large portion of the town was already closed for the season. The good with that was there was very little people around town and subsequently in the park, bad thing was we weren't able to do everything in town. But to be honest, didn't miss some random restaurants, gift shops or t-shirt stores. What was open was fine for us, plenty of options.

Day 1 - Fly into Bozeman, get car, swung by Big Sky to check it out and grab something to eat, then drive to West Yellowstone.

Day 2 - All day in Yellowstone NP, about 10-11 hrs in total. Started at the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone and made our way around to Norris Geyser Basin and then to Mammoth and eventually to Old Faithful stopping along the way at a few spots to see wildlife, etc. Light traffic made it easy to get around and see all of this in one day, I can't imagine during the busy summer time what the traffic must be like.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, Artist Point:
View attachment 166093

Day 3 - Jackson and Grand Teton NP and a little Yellowstone on the back side. Hit the town of Jackson for shopping and lunch, cool town I could have spend more time here just wandering around. Checked out a few spots in Grand Teton NP, Schwabacher Landing, Jenny Lake, Jackson Lake (which was crazy dry due to drought conditions.) and then headed back up thru Yellowstone's S. entrance.

Schwabacher Landing:
View attachment 166094
Colter Bay Marina:
View attachment 166095

Day 3 - Yellowstone NP again to hit some spots we blew by the first day and some we saved for a day when the weather wasn't going to be as nice (got pretty cold this day, small bit of snow/rain). Firehole Canyon Road, Grand Prismatic, then West Thumb Geyser basin. Ended up being a shorter day overall.

Grand Prismatic from the overlook:
View attachment 166099

Day 4 - Another cold/rainy day so we hit the Grizzly & Wolf Discovery Center for a bit (sort of a mini zoo), then back into Yellowstone to see Old Faithful one last time and walk around the basin behind it.

Bison + Old Faithful:
View attachment 166100

Day 5 - Drive back to Bozeman (finally saw moose!), checked out downtown for a short bit then back to the airport. Ended up being about 1000 miles of driving for the trip and places we went.

Moose (1 of 3):
View attachment 166101

What an awesome post! Great pictures !

When I was there in the mid 90’s I drove roughly 400 miles in the park…. Pretty amazing when you consider you are driving around inside of a caldera.

 

[biffdotorg]

Amazing trip. You lucked out on weather, as this time of year, you could get warm sun, or heavy snow. Looks like you missed the color in the tetons by a couple weeks. Still amazing beautiful. Thanks for sharing!

 

[fatboyroy]

Nice looks like you had a great trip! thanks for sharing